A geographical information system (“GIS”) is a system for collecting, storing, analyzing, and managing data and attributes related to spatial and geographic data, or location information. GIS systems may manage large databases of location information, wherein the databases are maintained through continuously adding new location information and updating existing location information. Specifically, a computer system utilizing a GIS is capable of integrating, storing, editing, analyzing, sharing and displaying geographically referenced information.
Caching of data transmitted between a client of a GIS and a server of the GIS is a common technique to improve the performance of the GIS. However, for caching to function properly, a server within a GIS must be aware of the real-time location data that is cached on a client and must query immense amounts of database information to determine if the location information is accurate. Due to the problems associated with real-time caching, current GIS schemes either abandon caching altogether, or use a simplified scheme that results in a client requesting a great amount of unnecessary information.